1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to the coupling of a printed circuit board (PCB) to a backplane, motherboard, or other circuit board and, more particularly, to coupling a mating card edge of a PCB to a corresponding female card-edge connector of a PCB.
2. Description of the Related Art
Modular computing systems often rely on the connection of one or more printed circuit boards (PCBs) to a corresponding backplane, motherboard, or other circuit board. To illustrate, server systems often employ a server chassis having a backplane with card-edge connectors into which one or more processor cards are inserted or connected, and desktop computers often employ expansion slots into which expansion cards may be inserted and connected. In many implementations, the technician building, maintaining, or modifying the computing system does not have a clear view of the card-edge connector on the backplane or motherboard during the board insertion process, and thus is required to attempt to insert a connector or mating card edge on the PCB into the corresponding card-edge connector without visual cues, with such instances of this process conventionally referred to as “blind mating” of the mobile/dynamic PCB and the corresponding fixed circuit board.
In many implementations, the PCB employs a mating card edge, that is, a paddle or other extension of the PCB substrate of the PCB, to form a mechanical and electrical connection with the corresponding card-edge connector on the circuit board. In a blind mating process, the technician may misalign the mating card edge relative to the corresponding card-edge connector and, as a result, damage one or both of the mating card edge or the card-edge connector while forcing the PCB toward the card-edge connector. To illustrate, server systems may employ a mini-Serial Attached Small Computer System Interface (mini-SAS) female card-edge connector to receive the mating card edge of a PCB encased within a housing terminating a flexible cable. These mini-SAS female card-edge connectors are standardized to employ a thin metal cage that precedes the slot opening of the card-edge connector, with the thin metal cage originally being intended as a retention mechanism for a corresponding male mini-SAS cable connector. However, with the adaptation of such mini-SAS female card-edge connectors for coupling with mating card edges of rigid PCBs alone, without a termination housing, this thin metal cage is prone to being severely bent or even shorn off during blind mating of a PCB with the mini-SAS female card-edge connector. Likewise, the primary housing of the mini-SAS female card-edge connector is susceptible to damage or detachment from the circuit board during the blind mating process.